And Then There Were None
by SecretLifeOfAChemNerd
Summary: Sequel to Those You've Known. The scars were still present, still a daily reminder of his past, but they also seem to carry a significance that things couldn't get any worse than they had been at that point in his life. He was wrong.
1. The Beginning In The End

**To a soul gone too soon. Because I'll never be able to watch Beauty and the Beast again without crying my eyes out. Every time someone refers to my name as "like the car?" I'll think of you and your horrible sexual car puns. We all miss and love you. You were too big for this world anyway.**

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"Those you've known and lost, still walk behind you. All alone they linger till they find you. Without them the world grows dark around you and nothing is the same until you know that they have found you"

-Moritz Stiefel "Those You've Known (Spring Awakening)

A year could change a lot. It could change how you look at your best friend. Instead of the happy-go-lucky teenage boy you thought you knew you see a damaged kid who thought he was strong enough to hold his emotions in. And in all honesty Logan Mitchell thought he had suffered enough heartbreak to last a life time.

But the scars were still present, still a daily reminder of his past, but they also seem to carry a significance that things couldn't get any worse than they had been at that point in his life.

He was wrong.

It was amazing how a few simple words could break you, make you lose control of your emotions so badly you don't remember where you are, you don't even remember your name the pain is so intense. You want to die. It would be a welcome relief from the pain, but your heart just won't stop beating, your lungs continue to take air in and out, even though the rhythm is disjointed and irregular.

Logan was waiting for the pain to pass, hoping he would suddenly wake up, tangled in his sheets, because this was all just a bad dream. But then the pain pulsed again, like a heart beat behind a bruise, and he was reminded how real it was. Even his subconscious wouldn't be this cruel.

His skin was numb, and although he knew somewhere in his mind that his friends were trying to calm him with light touches and reassuring hugs he couldn't feel it. He was trapped in a bubble of fire, but he wasn't getting out anytime soon. He had a bad feeling this was only the beginning.

Logan always looked for the rational answer. The one that made the most sense. Sometimes it didn't work. He could never explain why his foster dad had whipped him. The one that had burrowed in his mind and questioned him daily was the only question that Logan had never been able to answer. It killed him because it was the only question that ever mattered.

He buried himself in math and science as a way of coming up with the answer. If he could solve long complex equations then he should be able to answer his biggest question. It never worked, and he was always searching.

He thought maybe after he told his friends they could help him find the answer, but their lost and sad faces were enough to prove they didn't know anything better than he did. It was hard, but a year later he was actually feeling good.

Who would have known that telling his friends could take a weight off his chest? He didn't jump as much anymore when someone snuck up on him and he could actually say when he was having a bad day instead of burrowing it away. He was starting to be truly happy, not haunted every second by the skeletons in his closet. Sure, he still had days where we wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed and sleep to rid the pain, hoping the nightmares wouldn't invade his mind, but in spite of that he was improving.

But now Logan felt like he was back a square one. He was five again, left to cry and bleed on the cold concrete floor of the basement because this couldn't be happening.

This would be another question that would haunt him until the day he died, because what had they ever done to deserve this? They were good people. GREAT people who had shown him what love looked like for the first time in his life. Logan could honestly say that without them he wouldn't be alive. They had gotten him through the hardest part of his life, told him they loved him, and made him think that he could be wanted. Now he had to go through this without them.

Wasn't there some kind of cosmic rule that too much grief couldn't happen to one person? There had to be a line drawn somewhere because Logan felt like he couldn't take one more ounce of pain or he would explode into a million microscopic pieces that could never be put together again.

~BTR~

Kendall wondered how the world could be so cruel. After all Logan had been through couldn't he catch a break? He had just started to really smile again, days went by without Logan having a single nightmare and if he did they were always there to help him through. He was actually coping with the grief. Now Kendall wondering if Logan could ever be happy again.

Logan's whole life, the life he was finally starting to take back, destroyed by one phone call. One fucking call was changing so much.

They had been hanging around the apartment, goofing off and acting like teenage boys normally do. Playing video games, trying to beat each other at dome hockey, actually injuring themselves playing real hockey. It was a great day, the sun was shining, their cares were discarded for a moment.

Logan had been laughing when he answered his buzzing phone. It had only taken a moment for the atmosphere of the room to change from happy and carefree to serious as Logan's face changed to shock and disbelief. The phone slipped from his hands, hitting the carpeted floor with a dull thud.

They rushed over and while James and Carlos worriedly asked Logan what was wrong Kendall picked up the fallen phone, bringing it to his ear, hearing the horrible news for himself. Logan was chanting over and over that it couldn't be true, couldn't be happening.

Kendall silently told James and Carlos, and watched the horrified expression come onto their features.

It took a long time to calm Logan down. An hour later he was still chanting that this had to be some sort of joke or prank; it couldn't be real, but after two more telephone calls back home it seemed to hit Logan that this was really happening.

Since the truth about Logan's childhood had come out Kendall, James, and Carlos had witness their fair share of Logan break downs. They thought they would easily be able to handle it as they had done in the past. Nothing could have prepared them for how bad it was.

There was a ten minute stretch at the beginning where they seriously debated calling an ambulance because Logan was hardly breathing. He finally calmed down a little after James pulled out his phone and began to dial, not wanting or needing medical assistance.

He was scaring Kendall more than anything had ever scared him before; worse than that first time when Logan had clutched his shirt and let ten years of pent up emotion out.

Logan was laughing when he answered the phone. Kendall wondered if he would ever laugh again.

**So, I said I was going to wait to post this until after I saw _Spring Awakening_, but I couldn't resist and really wanted to get it up. I actually already have it all written. Sorry to say it's not very long, only 3 chapter, but this is really something I just needed to do for myself to get some emotions out. I'm sorry if it seems jumpy, but I was very emotional when I wrote this story. This whole thing was written within a week of my friends death, truthfully I was a wreck and all that came out of paper. What more can I say? Review? Please?**


	2. The Grief In the Boy

**This chapter is something I like to call emotional vomit. Again, sorry if this is jumpy. I can't bring myself to change it to much. But anyways, enjoy! And thank you so much to the review I got last chapter. You guys rock!**

"Whispering. Here the ghosts in the moonlight. Sorrow doing a new dance through their bone, through their skin. Listening to the souls in the fool's night. Fumbling mutely with their rude hands and there's heartache without end."

-Wendla Berkman "Whispering" (Spring Awakening)

Logan hated the color black. Absolutely hated it, and as he stood looking in the mirror he couldn't help but notice how the dark black suit he was wearing made his pale skin stand out even more than usual. The dark circles that had slowly vanished in the past year were back, darker and more prominent than ever. It had been less than a week since the accident and he hadn't gotten more than two hours of sleep a night.

He looked sick, broken, and Logan couldn't even bring himself to care, at least not today. Tomorrow he would put on the act and pretend everything was ok so his friends didn't worry about him, but he gave himself today. Today he could be upset, because he honestly didn't know how he was going to make it through.

The door opened and Kendall, James, and Carlos, all dresses in a similar fashion, entered his room. Their eyes held their own grief, as well as their grief for Logan."You ready?" Kendall asked gently, not wanting to push him.

Logan simply nodded, looking at the floor as they headed out of the room and out into the crisp Minnesota air. Logan had always imagined their first homecoming since the album drop to be a happy one. Everyone celebrating the hard work they had been through and the reward they were soon to get. But this, this was nothing like he imagined. There were no celebrations. Hell, nobody had even laughed since they arrived.

Standing by the car was Mrs. Knight. As the boys approached she pulled Logan into a tight hug, trying to ease a little pain. It scared her that Logan didn't react at all. He just stood their taking slow deliberate breaths. When she pulled back to look at him, there were already tears in his eyes and it broke her heart so see one of her boys so hurt.

The car ride was quiet. No one knowing what to say, all shooting worried glances at Logan, whose attention was focused out of the window.

He saw it oddly fitting that it was about to rain. The sky was dark and low rumbles of thunder could be heard in the distance. It seemed to mirror his state of mind.

It was said that there were five stages of grief; Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. Logan had always thought of them as neat little boxes that one simply slipped into and out of when the previous stage was complete, but he couldn't have been more wrong. They all meshed together as one, each taking its toll on his physical and emotional state. There would be whole hours that would pass were Logan would just sit, depressed, he thought he was finally on his way to acceptance, but then the denial would come jumping back, telling him it couldn't be true; stuff like this couldn't happen to people as good as his parents. Sometimes he skipped denial all together and got so angry that the world was so against him. Angry that they had left him.

He knew from day one that the world wasn't fair, didn't give breaks to the people that needed it the most, bu this, this was just cruel.

When they pulled up Logan didn't know if he could get out of the car. Luckily, his friends caught on and placed the hands on him to help.

Walking into the building was torture. Pitying looks followed Logan the entire trek in. He had always hated those looks. That was one of the single biggest reasons he didn't open up to people. Logan wanted to forget everything about the past and move on, but his old mantra was failing him. His heart still ached with every breath he took.

Logan took his seat at the front, between Kendall and Mrs. Knight, who had taken hold of his hand, stroking his arm in a motherly way that only made the hole in his chest bleed more.

This was never supposed to happen. It was always something you read about, something that happened to someone else. He never thought it could happen to someone he knew, someone he needed so much. He had heard that expression a thousand times before in books and news reports, but never understood the gut-wrenching feeling until now. He wished more than anything he could go back to being naive.

Everything got quite as a man approached the podium situated at the front of the room. "We gather here today to mourn the passing of John and Ellie Mitchell..."

It was like being kicked in the gut. Logan's hands went to his stomach as if that would somehow ease the pain, but his attempt was in vain. It increased as more words from the preacher's mouth filled the air.

There would be no more denial. Hearing the words spoke aloud like that wouldn't ever allow him the blissful state again, if only for a minute or two.

Logan wondered if it was normal that his hearing had left him. His ears were filled with a buzzing, getting louder with every second that passed. He tried to breath, but air didn't want to cooperate with his lungs as tears obstructed his vision.

And then, like someone dropped a lit match in a barrel of gasoline, the pain was suddenly unbearable. It was the worse than anything he had ever experienced. Logan would rather have been whipped a thousand times over than feel the all consuming, crushing pain he was currently.

Before Logan could even think, he was on his feet and running. Running faster than he ever had before, away from the people, away from the pain. Bursting through the doors and outside into the rain he didn't stop, didn't slow down. Where he was heading, he didn't know, but he had to get away, had to leave, had to forget.

His legs were burning, but he didn't slow down, he pushed on, the physical pain replacing some of the emotional. Finally he collapsed on a patch of grass, a mile or two away from his starting point, soaking wet, his tears consuming him.

Breathing was more than difficult as his brain seemed to have shut down, not telling his lungs how to breath. He found it amazing that his heart was still beating with the pain that surrounded it. Logan's hands were getting numb and he was starting to feel light headed. Was this what dying felt like? Would he simply stop existing like his parents had? Would anyone even care?

Over the last year Logan had shed so many of his insecurities and fears, but now it was like they were all back. He was that scared five year old kid again, hiding from the world, hiding from the pain, scared he'll get hurt, scared to let people in only to have them break him, because look where loving people had gotten him.

Hope and love were bad things. They could kill you. They could make you happier than anything else in the world, but they could also destroy you, make you want to scream and cry; curl up in a corner and forget the world.

Why did we even bother? Why build bonds and relationships when they would be broken because death is inevitable. It's a law of nature that every living thing, every person, plant, and animal must die. If it was an inevitable event then why wasn't the human race better equipped to deal with it? If everyone would eventually die why did it hurt so much when it happened?

Maybe it wasn't the death that shook us the most, but the timing. Logan thought it might be easier if he was given some warning. If they had died peacefully in their sleep instead of being torn from the world when that semi came in contact with their car would it have been easier? Didn't they deserve a peaceful painless death instead of a sudden bolt on anguish and shock?

And Logan was shocked. Shocked that his could happen. Shocked that it was his parents who had been taken away from him so suddenly. What if next time it was Kendall, Carlos, or James? He couldn't handle that. Could fathom losing someone else close to him. Couldn't deal with that kind of loss.

As if thinking their names had magical powers suddenly Logan was surrounded by his friends, holding him tight, arms everywhere in a four way hug.

But hey weren't the arms Logan wanted to hold him. They were never coming back, and it only made him cry harder.

**So yeah, depressing... Anyway I didn't mention this last chapter, but I actually had this idea before all the shit that happened lately happened, but I wasn't serious about writing it. It was just another aspect of Lance Sweet's life that had happened and I wanted to explore. In original planning it was part of Those You've Known, but I cut that out later. But hen everything happened and I knew I had to write this. But on a different less depressing note BIG TIME RUSH CD OUT TODAY! =D And I get to see Spring Awakening tomorrow! (if you couldn't tell already I'm pretty much obsessed with this musical!) so yeah happy things are coming my way! Thanks so much everybody for reading and reviewing! It means a lot since this is so personal. LOVE YA ALL!  
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	3. The End In The Beginning

**Sorry this took awhile. I'm a horrible updater...And this is the last chapter :( Ugh, this has not been a good week. I just feel like the entire world is against me right now. Every time I try to do something happy or fun it gets snatched away at the last moment. I hate disappointment more than about anything else. Ice cream does help heal the soul though (and it's the Bunny Tracks kinda so it's extra yummy!). Oh well, enough with my angst, on with Logan's...**

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"All things he never did are left behind. All the things his mama wished he'd bear in mind, and all his dad had hoped he'd know . . . All things he ever lived are left behind. All the fears that ever flickered through his mind. All the sadness that he'd come to own."

-Melchior Gabor "Left Behind" (Spring Awakening)

Kendall was having major deja vu, When Logan had first received the news of his parents death all four of them had been in the exact same position they were currently. However, this time it more heartbreaking, more final.

What scared Kendall the most was that Logan wasn't sleeping. He would barley drift off before waking up, crying and shaking because of nightmares, nightmares that caused him to relive the horrifying moments of discovery over and over again.

They took shifts staying up with Logan, not wanting to leave him alone for fear he would do something drastic, because he was a wreck. They thought he might go back to bottling his emotions up, maybe even shut them out. That's what Logan did when he was upset and Kendall would make damn sure that's not what happened again. But with Kendall's determination to keep Logan safe he also felt helpless agin. There was nothing he could do to ease his friend's pain and that fact alone killed him. He was supposed to make Logan feel better, supposed to protect him from getting his heart crush and he had failed.

Logically Kendall knew there was nothing he could have done to stop Logan's parents from dying, but he still felt guilty that he had broken his promise to never let anything hurt Logan again. Kendall couldn't protect Logan from everything no matter how desperately he tried. There was some things that were going to happen that no one had any power over. But did it all have to happen to one person?

Logan was a good person, hell, he was a fantastic person! Heartbreak wasn't what he deserved, but maybe Logan's past hardships made him the person he was. Maybe without his past he wouldn't be able to have the undying love and compassion for everyone around him like he did.

But as Logan sat shaking in Kendall's arms he didn't care if hardships made Logan who he was. All Kendall wanted was to take them all away with magic words or the wave of a wand, bu magic didn't exist, couldn't fix his friend.

Before they knew it all four boys were crying, letting their own grief take them over, breaking down walls that should've never been built.

"I c-can't believe this is happening again." Logan's words were soft and full of the internal turmoil he had been trying to hide for days.

"What are you talking about?" James said, his voice cackly as he looked into the eyes that used to be a rich chocolate brown, but now looked black, hollow, and dead.

"I'm an orphan again." It was physically painful for Logan to speak aloud the thought. Saying things out loud always made them more real, more final, more painful. If a thought stayed planted inside your head, you could convince yourself it wasn't real or true, but tell another person and it was in their head too, making the statement a fact and not simply an opinion. "I can't do it again, I just can't!"

"You're not an orphan." Kendall said, a certain edge to his voice.

"Yes I am. My parents are d-dead. I don't have any other family. What am I go-going to do?"

"You've got us." Kendall let go of Logan to look him, James and Carlos in the eyes. "We're your family. It doesn't matter that we're not blood related or I don't have a paper saying it's official, but you're our brother no matter what. We love you Logan. We won't ever leave."

James and Carlos had the same sudden fire in their eyes that Kendall did, wanting Logan to know he was loved and wanted. They wouldn't let it get to the point it had last time. Logan would not walk around thinking he didn't deserve to be loved. Not again. Not ever.

"I'm sorry." Logan chocked out, shuddering when he drew in a deep breath. "I don't want you guys to worry about me."

"We'll always worry about you Logan. That's what families do, they worry about each other."

For the first time in days Logan smiled, it was small and sad and didn't reach his eyes, but it was a start that gave Kendall hope for Logan's future, of their future. Hope that they could help him out of this.

~BTR~

Logan had known th whole "healing process" wasn't going to be easy. And it was hard, there was no denying that.

They say once you've hit rock bottom the only way to go is up, but in the weeks following the funeral Logan found himself face down in the gravel with no way of pulling himself out. Luckily he wasn't doing it alone this time.

The thing that genuinely upset Logan the most was that he legitimately though he would have been able to deal with everything quite well, if it wasn't for the nightmares. Every night he would wake up shaking and confused. The dreams were never bloody or overly dramatic, it was just him, Kendall, Carlos, and James sitting in the floor crying and clutching each other. Logan couldn't even figure out why the dreams were so upsetting because it shouldn't bother him as such as it did.

When he woke up his heat would drop and his chest would feel hollow, like there had never been a heart there to begin with. His whole body would go numb because he simply couldn't feel anymore. His mind was in sensory overload. He would just sit in his room and stare at the walls for hours, not able to muster the strength to move or even cry. At this point he thought he had run out of tears.

Logan tried to move on, tried to throe himself back into work for the band as a distraction from the grief, It worked to an extent. Even when thing came up that should have made him happy the depression was always there in the back of his mind. Logan wondered if a day will ever go by that he doesn't think of them.

The raw emotion would come pouring out at random times, Logan couldn't regulate or control it. They will be in the recording studio or at dance rehearsal when suddenly it will hit him all over again that he won't be able to call his parents when he gets home and tell them about what stupid thing Carlos had done that day. He hated crying in front of other people. It made him feel weak.

Driving in the car was hell. Logan had to keep his head down or risk having a panic attack at seeing all of the cars so close together. Any minute one could make a wrong move and it would be over for someone else he loved. He never relaxed how venerable everyone was before.

What hurt the most though was that Logan never got to tell his parents just how much they meant to him. He didn't even get to say goodbye. They would never know that Logan held them accountable for the person he turned out to be. Without them he would have grown up with no love or compassion. He would have never known what to do with his emotions. He owed them his life.

It came as a shock to Kendall, James, and Carlos when Logan walked in the living room of the apartment two months after the tragedy to say "I don't want to be a doctor anymore."

They just stared at him, because Logan Mitchell not wanting to be a doctor was the absolute craziest thing they had ever heard before in their entire life's, and that included all the crazy plans Carlos came up with on a daily basis.

"I mean, I don't want to be a physical medical doctor. I want to be a psychologist. I want to help people get better mentally. The physical medicine can only do so much, you know? Just because someone's skin is healed doesn't mean they're any better. I want to fix that."

The most important lesson his parents had ever taught him was that people with good hearts could fix someone that was broke. His scars would never fully fade, but he could help someone else from forming their own.

Logan had always thought his scars defined him, that they made him who he was, but he was wrong. It wasn't the bad things that counted, it was the good. The people who could make you smile mattered a thousand times more than the ones that made you cry.

When he was face down all he had to do was reach a hand up, knowing one of his friends would always be there to pull him up. They were what mattered most.

The more time passed the easier it was to function. Logan still thought about his parents everyday and missed them like crazy, but he knew he couldn't shut out the pain this time. He wouldn't do that to his friends. But Logan also realized that it wasn't goodbye because they would see each other again one day, and he would finally be able to thank them for everything they had done. But until then he had two guardian angles in the sky. Two people looking out for him. Two people he loved.

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**I hope you enjoyed this! I kinda feel like I'm leaving a part of myself behind with this ending. Again, sorry if it's jumpy or sucky or whatever. I have a feeling I won't be getting much sleep tonight even though I am dead tired and there are probably mistakes galore, but what can you do? I have like a million other fanfic ideas that are all battling with my head as to which one gets written first. I guess only time will tell... so be on the lookout! And just to know, who loves the new BTR cd? My little brother is in love with the song "Nothing Even Matters" and has a whole little dance to it. I swear it's the most adorable thing I've ever seen. I so need to tape it and put it up on YouTube. Anyway... thank you so much for reading and reviewing this because it really does mean a lot! Love you all!**


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